curl POST format for CURLOPT POSTFIELDS

Question

When I use curl via POST and set CURLOPT POSTFIELD do I have to urlencode or any special format   for example  If I want to post 2 fields  first and last   first John amp last Smith   what is the exact code format that should be used with curl    ch curl init    curl setopt  ch  CURLOPT URL   url   curl setopt  ch  CURLOPT RETURNTRANSFER  1   curl setopt  ch  CURLOPT POST  1   curl setopt  ch  CURLOPT POSTFIELDS   data    reply curl exec  ch   curl close  ch

User · Answer

For CURLOPT POSTFIELDS  the parameters can either be passed as a urlencoded string like para1 val1 amp para2 val2 amp    or as an array with the field name as key and field data as value  Try the following format     data   json encode array   first     gt   John    last    gt   Smith        ch   curl init     curl setopt  ch  CURLOPT URL  url   curl setopt  ch  CURLOPT RETURNTRANSFER  1   curl setopt  ch  CURLOPT POSTFIELDS   data    output   curl exec  ch   curl close  ch

User · Answer

In case you are sending a string  urlencode   it  Otherwise if array  it should be key  value paired and the Content-type header is automatically set to multipart form-data   Also  you don t have to create extra functions to build the query for your arrays  you already have that    query   http build query  data        amp

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One other major difference that is not yet mentioned here is that CURLOPT POSTFIELDS can t handle nested arrays   If we take the nested array   a    gt  1   b    gt   2  3  4   then this should be be parameterized as a 1 amp b   2 amp b   3 amp b   4  the   and   will be should be URL encoded   This will be converted back automatically into a nested array on the other end  assuming here the other end is also PHP    This will work   var dump http build query   a    gt  1   b    gt   2  3  4         output  string 36   a 1 amp b 5B0 5D 2 amp b 5B1 5D 3 amp b 5B2 5D 4    This won t work   curl setopt  ch  CURLOPT POSTFIELDS    a    gt  1   b    gt   2  3  4       This will give you a notice  Code execution will continue and your endpoint will receive parameter b as string  Array       PHP Notice   Array to string conversion in     on line

User · Answer

According to the PHP manual  data passed to cURL as a string should be URLencoded   See the page for curl setopt   and search for CURLOPT POSTFIELDS

User · Answer

Do not pass a string at all   You can pass an array and let php curl do the dirty work of encoding etc

User · Answer

EDIT  From php5 upwards  usage of http build query is recommended   string http build query   mixed  query data    string  numeric prefix                               string  arg separator    int  enc type   PHP QUERY RFC1738         Simple example from the manual    lt  php  data   array  foo   gt  bar                  baz   gt  boom                  cow   gt  milk                  php   gt  hypertext processor     echo http build query  data      n       output  foo bar amp baz boom amp cow milk amp php hypertext processor       gt      before php5   From the manual      CURLOPT POSTFIELDS      The full data to post in a HTTP  POST  operation  To post a file  prepend a filename with   and use the full path  The filetype can be explicitly specified by following the filename with the type in the format   type mimetype   This parameter can either be passed as a urlencoded string like  para1 val1 amp para2 val2 amp      or as an array with the field name as key and field data as value  If value is an array  the Content-Type header will be set to multipart form-data  As of PHP 5 2 0  files thats passed to this option with the   prefix must be in array form to work    So something like this should work perfectly  with parameters passed in a associative array    function preparePostFields  array       params   array       foreach   array as  key   gt   value         params      key         urlencode  value          return implode   amp     params

User · Answer

Interestingly the way Postman does POST is a complete GET operation with these 2 additional options   curl setopt  ch  CURLOPT CUSTOMREQUEST   POST    curl setopt  ch  CURLOPT POSTFIELDS         Just another way  and it works very well

User · Answer

It depends on the content-type  url-encoded or multipart form-data  To send data the standard way  as a browser would with a form  just pass an associative array  As stated by PHP s manual      This parameter can either be passed as a urlencoded string like  para1 val1 amp para2 val2 amp      or as an array with the field name as key and field data as value  If value is an array  the Content-Type header will be set to multipart form-data    JSON encoding  Neverthless  when communicating with JSON APIs  content must be JSON encoded for the API to understand our POST data   In such cases  content must be explicitely encoded as JSON    CURLOPT POSTFIELDS   gt  json encode   param1    gt   param1   param2    gt   param2      When communicating in JSON  we also usually set accept and content-type headers accordingly   CURLOPT HTTPHEADER   gt         accept  application json        content-type  application json

User · Answer

This answer took me forever to find as well  I discovered that all you have to do is concatenate the URL      after the file name and extension  with the URL-encoded query string  It doesn t even look like you have to set the POST cURL options  See the fake example below     create URL  exampleURL    http   www example com example php        create curl resource  ch   curl init         build URL-encoded query string  data   http build query      array  first    gt   John    last    gt   Smith     amp        set url curl setopt  ch  CURLOPT URL   exampleURL    data        return the transfer as a string curl setopt  ch  CURLOPT RETURNTRANSFER  1         output contains the output string  output   curl exec  ch        close curl resource to free up system resources  lt br  gt  curl close  ch     You can also use file get contents        read entire webpage file into a string  output   file get contents  exampleURL    data

User · Answer

for nested arrays you can use    data        name 0      value 1      name 1      value 2      name 2      value 3      id     value 4

[php] curl POST format for CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS

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